


Scattered Memories

by captainoutoftime



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Domestic Violence, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War Bucky Barnes, pre war steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 09:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6652387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainoutoftime/pseuds/captainoutoftime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of steve's memories across his lifetime. this was mainly done as a character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scattered Memories

A small kitchen. It’s beaten and worn, but scrupulously cleaned. There’s a bathtub in the center, covered with a large board, serving as a table. Standard tenement housing. High up. The ground is distant, when he stands on tiptoe to peek through the windows. There’s a pervasive cold here, leaking through the shoddy windows. Sometimes even through the loose board near the stove. It makes him want to shiver but he tries not to because it is a Friday. 

Steve doesn’t like Fridays. Fridays are scary. 

“Steven Grant Rogers.” He smiles, sheepishly. “You’re supposed to be in bed, young man.” Sarah is kneeling in front of him, pushing the flop of thick blond hair back, hand lingering on his forehead. Fever. Her fingers are cool against his head. Steve leans against her, snuggling up to bury his face against her shoulder.

“I wanna have dinner with you, Mama,” he insists. “C’n you come ‘n be in my room?” Hope shines in his eyes. He needs to stay with her, because it’s Friday and he’s scared, but he’s less scared when he’s with her. 

“Alright, angel. Just until Papa gets home,” Sarah allows. 

“Until what?“ 

It’s the Friday voice. Blurry around the edges like signs that are too far away to see. Steve can smell the sharp alcohol smell and curls tighter into her, hiding, hiding. 

"I was just going to put Steve to bed,” Sarah says, seemingly unfazed. She smiles, and Steve imagines her with angel wings, stretching out to protect him. “Then I’ll heat up dinner for us.”

Joseph doesn’t take off his shoes, tracking dirt onto the scrubbed floor. Steve is bitter about those stupid shoes. He should take them off, doesn’t he know Mama worked hard today? “He can eat with us,” he says, eyes burning and burning the way Friday makes them as he sits ungracefully in a chair. “You gotta stop babying him, Sarah, you’ll make him softer than he already is.” He snorts, shaking his head, and Steve’s hands tighten in Sarah’s skirt as she stands up.

“He’s sick, Joseph. He’s not weak, he’s five." 

"An’ a half,” Steve interjects. This is important. He’s five and a half, and he can be brave. He can be brave, he can be strong. He has to be those things. Has to be a real man like Papa says he should be. 

“Shut up,” Papa says sharply, loud enough that Steve cringes back. There’s no blow to land, but he’s ducked around a chair anyway. Hiding. His head pounds, and he feels sick to his stomach now but he can’t show that. Can’t be soft. He’s five and a half and these are important things. “Minute you stop waiting on him hand and foot, he’s gonna keel right over. No point. Lookit ‘im, he’s fuckin-" 

"Stop that!” Sarah yells, and Steve’s eyes are wide on her because Mama never yells, but he’s scared because he doesn’t want to die either and what if Papa’s right? He’s got to be, he knows more than Steve, and he shouldn’t question the man of the house. “Never say that again." 

The next thing he knows, he’s safe in her arms and carried back to his room. He wonders what keeling over feels like, but he doesn’t ask her that. Mama is crying, but the quiet kind where he knows to just let her hold him. Steve will prove it to her. To Papa, too. He’s got to live. 

Fevers don’t break on determination alone, though. When the telltale sounds of Mama crying and Papa yelling reach that point where Steve knows that she is hurting and will be using her makeup tomorrow, he is too weary to get out of bed and try to save her. He lays carefully on his side so he can breathe, and so as not to put pressure on last Friday’s lesson on how to be tough.

* * *

 

“Where'dya get that one?” Bucky asks, kicking a rock down the sidewalk. “‘Cause I personally saw that ya din’t get in no fights all week so you c'n sleep over my place this Friday." 

Steve ducks his head, poorly attempting to hide the shiner. He’d been so excited at the idea of spending the night. "Didn’t pick a fight,” he promises, shifting the books in his arms. 

“What, your blanket punch ya in the eye?” Bucky glares, irritated. “You promised, Rogers." 

"Wasn’t me,” he half-growls, kicking Bucky’s rock too hard and watching it clatter into the street. 

Bucky leans on the wall of a building in front of him, blocking him off. It wouldn’t really matter- he’s only a year older, but about three years bigger, even at the tender age of eight and seven. “Who dunnit?" 

His eyes flash and he shoves at Bucky’s arm- hard. "Nobody! Drop it, Bucky!” His voice is shrill, and the cocktail of emotion is making his breaths ragged. 

The older boy notices immediately, dropping his books on the stoop and seizing Steve’s out of his arms. “Steve?" 

The blond swats at him, screwing his eyes shut against tears. "Stop it, stop it, I’m fine,” he gasps. 

Bucky hugs him gently, rubbing his back. With his ear to Bucky’s heartbeat, it’s easier for Steve to pace his breaths the way he knows he’s got to if he doesn’t wanna have a fit right here. “I know, Stevie. You’re fine,” Bucky agrees. “You’re alright." 

Steve’s trying not to cry against Bucky’s shirt, clinging on with fistfuls of fabric. "He usually only drinks on Fridays. 'N Saturdays,” he confesses, voice rough amidst hiccuping coughs and uneven gasps. “'N sometimes other days.” But Fridays were usually the bad nights, because he got paid then, and could afford the liquor to really get himself wasted. Those were the violent nights. 

“Your old man?” Bucky asks, massaging Steve’s back in steady circles. 

Steve just nods. He doesn’t tell people this. If it was anyone but Bucky… He doesn’t tell people about his bruises. He doesn’t tell them about the real reason he’d gotten his left arm broken earlier that year, the real reason it’s still a little crooked. 

“Your eye hurt? My Ma can patch that up. I’ll tell her you tripped, 'n I saw the whole thing happen." 

Mrs. Barnes grumbles in Yiddish while she gently holds ice to Steve’s eye. He only knows a few scattered words, but he doesn’t need to understand the language to know that it’s the same kind of concerned grumbling that his own mother does when he and Bucky come home dirty and scratched up. 

The door slams open to announce Bucky’s father’s arrival, and though Rebecca is flying across the room into his waiting arms, though he’s laughing a bubbling laugh and smiling bright, though he’s tousling Bucky’s hair with unabashed affection and shaking Steve’s hand like he’s a real guest, and not Bucky’s punk friend- Steve cringes. 

* * *

 

He’s choking. He can’t breathe. The panic is overwhelming and instantaneous, pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Steve clutches at his throat. He wants Mama, he wants Bucky. He wants help, but none is coming. Mama is on the floor. None is going to come, because- 

“You oughta have died already.” His breath is foul in Steve’s face, reeking of alcohol. “You oughta give in and stop humiliating me already." 

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Steve gasps in ragged puffs of air- it’s like breathing through an ever-shrinking straw, it’s like a pillow pressed over his mouth and nose, but there’s nothing to pull away, nothing to fight, just his own body. 

"Weak.” The word, spat out like it tastes foul, rings around the room, only slightly duller in Steve’s left ear. “Pathetic." 

On the floor, the seven year old boy crumpled in on himself looks no older than five- and a small five year old at that. His face is pale, especially around the nose. “Papa-” The desperate gasp earns him nothing. “Sorry- sor- sorry,” he wheezes, small hand still clutching at his chest as his lips start to turn blue. 

For his efforts, a vicious kick collides with a set of frail ribs. Steve tries to scream, but all he manages is a breathy squeak. His vision is tunneling. He’s crawling towards the door and hoping that Joseph loses interest. He usually does. If he can get down onto the street, Bucky still might be outside playing stickball with some other kids. If he can just get down to the street, Bucky might see him and help him breathe again. 

The lack of air is more terrifying than the little boy has words to describe. Frantic cough after frantic cough, he moves only inches across the floor. His heart beats erratically in his chest. He’s made of lead, he’s barely moving. Steve reaches and reaches, but the black swallows him up. 

When he wakes, he’s cradled gently in Mama’s arms, there’s a song in his ear and blood dripping down her lip and onto his shirt. She kisses him and holds him, but the words are still ringing in his ears. 

"Men don’t cry." 

He tells her that the bruises coloring his chest don’t hurt, because men aren’t supposed to.

 

 

* * *

 

She’s been in and out of the ward for months now. Though they’ve gone from poor to half-starving, Steve is determined to keep his mother in the hospital until she’s **well**. Sarah has insisted he not come into her room too often- because she wants him to study enough, she says. He knows it's because his immune system is shit. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her he had to drop out of art school weeks ago in favor of the factory again. 

Bucky acts as a go-between, bringing Steve’s love to Sarah, and Sarah’s back out. From time to time, Steve sneaks in anyway, to hold her hand and promise her that she’ll get better soon, right Ma? Right? She hasn’t stopped slapping at his wrist and telling him to get going already, and it never fails to make Steve smile when she tousles his hair, though he faithfully pretends to hate it.

“You get going out of here, Steven Grant,” Sarah insists. Her voice is weak and thin today, and it makes him anxious. He’s nineteen- a man now- he ought not to be so terrified. 

“Aw, Ma. I’ve got nowhere better to be.” The words are teasing and accompanied by a smirk, but they’re true. 

“James,” Sarah says, turning her head slightly to study the dark haired boy at Steve’s side. “James, didn’t you say you were going out tonight? Stevie, you tag along, won’t you?" 

Steve keeps his expression as noncomittal as possible. “You can be my best girl, huh, Ma? You wanna come dancing?” 

Sarah smiles, softly. She’s pale. She looks pained, and usually she hides that so well. Steve squeezes her hand. “I love you, my angel.” 

He’s fighting hard, fighting to keep this conversation light. “Even though I come in with holes in the knees all the time?” 

"Even then. I love you so much… I’m proud of you, sweet boy.” Sarah’s breaths come slower and Steve brushes her hair out of her face the way she used to do for him. The air rattles in her chest. “James Barnes. You take care of this boy of mine,” she murmurs. 

Bucky nods. His eyes are red- and that’s what start’s Steve’s hands shaking. “Ma, no, no,” he pleads, squeezing her hand as if trying to force energy back into her. “Please. I love you Ma, I- please.” 

She just looks at him, up into his eyes. “You are so brave,” she whispers. Steve swears she’s about to say something else, but she doesn’t. Her eyes close, and the rattle that accompanies her every breath stops. “Ma! Ma?” He’s shaking her hand, he’s staring desperately, because her hand is still warm in his, her hair is still gold, she’s still right here. 

“Mama?” He hasn’t called her that since childhood. “Mama, please, please,” he begs. “Mama, no! No, no, no.” Bucky’s arms wrap tight around him, crushing him against his chest, and Steve sobs. A few nurses enter, jotting down notes, and Steve howls as Bucky pulls him away, screams his agony into the empty hallway, and cries until he’s soaked through Bucky’s shirt and his tears stop coming. 

He doesn’t cry again. Not at the funeral, when they lower her into the ground next to the man who made Steve’s and her life a living hell. He doesn’t cry when they sort through her things. He doesn’t cry- even when Rebecca Barnes does, even when Bucky’s eyes shine, and the neighbor’s. He’s determined to seal up his eyes. Be brave.

Sarah Rogers didn’t raise a coward.

* * *

 

Bucky loves science fiction. He read it to him all the time when they were kids. And as much as Bucky likes to make fun of himself for being stupid, he’s really brilliant. Has all kinds of ideas. Once he read Steve a story about aliens that lived in glaciers. That they weren’t just mountains. They were mountain-sized ice cubes. Sometimes they found whole wooly elephants in there. Steve said no way, at the time, and Bucky told him that if he didn’t wise up and believe it, he’d chuck him into a glacier and see how he felt then.

He’s not sure why it’s that memory that’s going through his head right now. Except that maybe it’s the best descriptor. There’s a glacier scraping across Brooklyn, overtop of his bed. Pressing him heavy into the mattress. Heavy, heavy, and impossibly cold. He’s too tired to shiver, now, though. He’s too tired to do much but continue in his epic fight to breathe. 

Steve’s eyes are closed. Bucky’s voice occasionally drifts through the fevered haze and into his consciousness, but mostly, Steve just searches for the strength to draw in another breath. Twenty two. Awful young to die. But then, his father had bet he wouldn’t make it to six, and here he is. So maybe he’s beat the odds. 

There’s a cool hand on his forehead, and a rhythmic voice. “O, Lord Jesus Christ, most merciful Lord of Earth, we ask that you receive this child into your arms, that he might pass in safety…” Last rites. Father McMallon is giving him his last rites. That strikes something inside. They’re really sure he’s going to die, aren’t they? Fine. Fine. It doesn’t bother him the way it should, because he’s crushed under a glacier, and he’s ready for that to stop hurting.

Steve can feel two rough, callused palms around his hand. When the rhythmic voice stops, Bucky’s whispering something. He wants to look at him, to see if he’s alright, if he’s feeling okay. He wants to know Bucky’s okay. 

“Steve, you bastard. You bastard, don’t you dare.” Steve wants to smile at that. Same old Bucky. His Bucky. 

“Please,” Bucky sobs, tears wetting Steve’s hand. “Please, Steve. I’m begging you. Please, please. Don’t leave me here, Stevie. You’re all I got, you punk. Please. I love you, Stevie. Don’t die before I can get up the guts to tell you. Don’t die, Stevie, you’re stronger than this." 

Strong. It’s funny to think of. No one tells him he’s strong. No one tells him they love him. Just Bucky. Steve has to live. He has to fight. For Bucky. He’s been picking fights he can’t win his whole life, and he’s not stopping now.

* * *

 

“No!" 

The scream hangs around in the air long after the sound stops. The wind buffets him with a piercing chill that would have sent him into an asthma attack not six months prior. But Steve clings onto the side of the train anyway, staring blankly at the swiftly moving ground below him, covered in white snow. 

"Cap! Jesus, Cap, get offa there.” Steve is numb as Gabe tugs him inside, helping him sit with his back against the wall. “Cap?” he asks, voice a little quieter at the look on the man’s face. “Steve, you hit? What’s goin on? Where’s Bucky?" 

Steve chokes. It’s little more than a whimper, twisting the frozen mask of horror. He’s shaking like the ripped metal on the side of the train, trembling in the wind. 

"God…” Gabe stares out at the hole. There are tears in his eyes too, as he tries to heft Steve to his feet. “C’mon, man. Let’s get outta here, alright?" 

The Commandos are shocked and saddened, and though they offer words to each other, Steve responds to nothing. The walk to camp is silent. Steve stumbles more than once. Numb, numb, numb. Numb in body and soul. He wants to not feel anything. Feeling nothing would be preferable to the cold shock making his hands shake. 

There is no body, and no proper funeral. The Howlies dig a hole for Bucky’s meager possessions. Morita donates a box of smokes. Frenchie and Monty set a bottle of bourbon down. Steve clings to his extra coat, holding it too tightly. Falsworth’s hands are gentle in coaxing it out of his grip, a quiet “Alright, gents,” dismissing everyone else. 

That’s all there is. A coat, some cigarettes, and a half-finished bottle of booze. That’s all there is to Bucky now. An unmarked grave in an unmarked territory, to be blown away with the next snow. Steve stands in front of it until the sun sinks. Then he kneels. 

He only realizes that he’s sobbing when Dugan comes to kneel beside him, arm around his shoulders. “C’mon, Cap,” he murmurs. “C’mon. You’ll freeze out here. C’mon, buddy, he wouldn’t want that.” 

Steve clenches his fists up and nods, ashamed for the tears freezing to his cheeks. “Just a minute. Just another minute.” Dum-Dum pats his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. 

He stares at the freshly turned dirt for far too long. The next day, medical remarks once that the marks on his hands look almost like frostbite instead of something really mission-related, and Steve does not reply.  

 


End file.
